Monday, May 30, 2016

Putin Regime has Long had an Ideology – Great Power Imperialism -- Pavlova Says

Paul
Goble

Staunton, May 30 – Far too many
people in Russia and the West are prepared to accept the notion that Moscow
does not have an ideology because it has not promulgated a written doctrine,
but in Russia, Irina Pavlova argues, it is actions not words that matter – and the
former show that Vladimir Putin’s regime has had an ideology for a long time.

That ideology, the US-based Russian
historian says, is best encapsulated in the Russian word “velikoderzhaviye,”
which one can translate into English as “great power chauvinist imperialism”
and has broad popular support among Russian elites and the Russian people (ivpavlova.blogspot.com/2016/05/28-2016.html#more).

This ideological position is “traditional
Great Russian chauvinism cleansed from communism and clothed in Orthodox dress.”
In this form, Pavlova says, “it unites the powers that be, the elite, including
the liberal wing … the people of Russia and even a significant portion of
progressive society” beyond the borders of Russia.

According to this ideology, she
continues, “Russia is surrounded by enemies and must assert its status in the
world as a great power.”That is a
position an overwhelming portion of the Russian population supports and hence
backs the regime. It is why one can say, “’scratch’ a Russian and you’ll find a
great power chauvinist.”

This concept has its roots in the
notion of “Moscow as the third Rome,” which was invented by the monk Philophey
in the early 16th century.“Over
the course of centuries, this idea was transformed into an ideology, and today
it is completely justified to speak already about Russian fundamentalism.”

According to Pavlova, the idea has
four main aspects: the view that “the Russian people is the bearer of a special
morality and a special feeling of justice, the denial of the spiritless West as
a model of social development, the vision of the future of Russia as an empire,
and certainty about its special historical mission.”

As in Soviet times, she points out, “the
Russian authorities today are ready to carry the values of their civilization to
the rest of the world. Whether the world needs these values, [of course], is
another question entirely.”

And while Pavlova does not mention
it, the bombastic quality in which this ideology is expressed is the flip side
of a fundamental insecurity among Russians about their place in the world. One indication
of that is the obsession of the Russian media with what the rest of the world
is saying about Russia.

Every week “Kommersant-Vlast”
publishes statistics on how many media outlets beyond the borders of Russia
have mentioned Russia during the previous seven days.Last week, this figure was 1.24 percent (kommersant.ru/doc/2999411). To
gain some perspective on the insecurity this highlights, imagine the New York
Times or the Washington Post doing the same on a regular basis about mentions
of the US in foreign media.